Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law

Director, Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law

Biography

Noah Feldman specializes in constitutional studies, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between law and religion, free speech, constitutional design, and the history of legal theory. Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, he is also a Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard. In 2003 he served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and subsequently advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of the Transitional Administrative Law or interim constitution. He received his A.B. summa cum laude in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University in 1992. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a D.Phil. in Oriental Studies from Oxford University in 1994. From 1999 to 2002, he was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard. Before that he served as a law clerk to Justice David H. Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court (1998 to 1999) and to Chief Judge Harry T. Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1997 to 1998). He received his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1997, serving as Book Reviews Editor of the Yale Law Journal. He’s the author of eight books: The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President (Random House, 2017); Cool War: The Future of Global Competition (Random House, 2013); Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices (Twelve Publishing, 2010); The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Princeton University Press, 2008); Divided By God: America's Church-State Problem and What We Should Do About It (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2005); What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation building (Princeton University Press 2004); and After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2003). He also co-authored two textbooks with Kathleen Sullivan: Constitutional Law, Twentieth Edition (Foundation Press, Fall 2019) and First Amendment (Foundation Press, 2016).

A tiny, ebullient Jew who started as America's leading liberal and ended as its most famous judicial conservative. A Klansman who became an absolutist advocate of free speech and civil rights. A backcountry lawyer who started off trying cases about cows and went on to conduct the most important international trial ever. A self-invented, tall-tale Westerner who narrowly missed the presidency but expanded individual freedom beyond what anyone before had dreamed.
Four more different men could hardly be imagined. Yet they had certain things in common. Each was a self-made man who came from humble beginnings on the edge of poverty. Each had driving ambition and a will to succeed. Each was, in his own way, a genius.
They began as close allies and friends of FDR, but the quest to shape a new Constitution led them to competition and sometimes outright warfare. Scorpions tells the story of these four great justices: their relationship with Roosevelt, with each other, and with the turbulent world of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It also serves as a history of the modern Constitution itself.

The Arab Spring promised to end dictatorship and bring self-government to people across the Middle East. Yet everywhere except Tunisia it led to either renewed dictatorship, civil war, extremist terror, or all three. In The Arab Winter, Noah Feldman argues that the Arab Spring was nevertheless not an unmitigated failure, much less an inevitable one. Rather, it was a noble, tragic series of events in which, for the first time in recent Middle Eastern history, Arabic-speaking peoples took free, collective political action as they sought to achieve self-determination.
Focusing on the Egyptian revolution and counterrevolution, the Syrian civil war, the rise and fall of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the Tunisian struggle toward Islamic constitutionalism, Feldman provides an original account of the political consequences of the Arab Spring, including the reaffirmation of pan-Arab identity, the devastation of Arab nationalisms, and the death of political Islam with the collapse of ISIS. He also challenges commentators who say that the Arab Spring was never truly transformative, that Arab popular self-determination was a mirage, and even that Arabs or Muslims are less capable of democracy than other peoples.
Above all, The Arab Winter shows that we must not let the tragic outcome of the Arab Spring disguise its inherent human worth. People whose political lives had been determined from the outside tried, and for a time succeeded, in making politics for themselves. That this did not result in constitutional democracy or a better life for most of those affected doesn’t mean the effort didn’t matter. To the contrary, it matters for history—and it matters for the future.

Noah Feldman, The Three Lives of James Madison Genius, Partisan, President (2017).

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Legal Profession

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Government & Politics

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Executive Office

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Biography & Tribute

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Legal History

Type: Book

Abstract

Over the course of his life, James Madison changed the United States three times: First, he designed the Constitution, led the struggle for its adoption and ratification, then drafted the Bill of Rights. As an older, cannier politician he co-founded the original Republican party, setting the course of American political partisanship. Finally, having pioneered a foreign policy based on economic sanctions, he took the United States into a high-risk conflict, becoming the first wartime president and, despite the odds, winning.
In The Three Lives of James Madison, Noah Feldman offers an intriguing portrait of this elusive genius and the constitutional republic he created—and how both evolved to meet unforeseen challenges. Madison hoped to eradicate partisanship yet found himself giving voice to, and institutionalizing, the political divide. Madison’s lifelong loyalty to Thomas Jefferson led to an irrevocable break with George Washington, hero of the American Revolution. Madison closely collaborated with Alexander Hamilton on the Federalist papers—yet their different visions for the United States left them enemies.
Alliances defined Madison, too. The vivacious Dolley Madison used her social and political talents to win her husband new supporters in Washington—and define the diplomatic customs of the capital’s society. Madison’s relationship with James Monroe, a mixture of friendship and rivalry, shaped his presidency and the outcome of the War of 1812.
We may be more familiar with other Founding Fathers, but the United States today is in many ways Madisonian in nature. Madison predicted that foreign threats would justify the curtailment of civil liberties. He feared economic inequality and the power of financial markets over politics, believing that government by the people demanded resistance to wealth. Madison was the first Founding Father to recognize the importance of public opinion, and the first to understand that the media could function as a safeguard to liberty.

The Nineteenth Edition is an updated version of this classic casebook, adding new materials on the Supreme Court’s most recent decisions on federal power, free speech, equal protection and religious freedom to its existing comprehensive coverage of separation of powers, federalism, civil rights and civil liberties. This casebook provides a unique combination of clearly structured and lawyerly coverage of the cases with rich historical, theoretical, and philosophical materials that illuminate the development of our constitutional law. In the 19th edition, you will find the latest decisions on gay marriage, street signs and confederate flags, campaign contribution limits, congressional power over voting rights, and religious exemptions from health care mandates, among many others. The note materials and questions in the casebook make it easy to structure classes and promote lively discussion. And comparative examples from the constitutional law of other nations are provided throughout.

The article focuses on image maker and cross-cultural connector Melvin Chua and his role in promoting luxury fashion brands and marketing them in China. He is the founder of Ink Pak, a public relations and event-organizing firm that advises global luxury brands on how to succeed in China, including Chanel and Lanvin.

Noah R. Feldman, Cool War: The United States, China, and the Future of Global Competition (Random House 2013).

Categories:

Disciplinary Perspectives & Law

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International, Foreign & Comparative Law

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Law & Economics

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Foreign Relations

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East Asian Legal Studies

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International Trade

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Type: Book

Abstract

The Cold War seemingly ended in a decisive victory for the West. But now, Noah Feldman argues, we are entering an era of renewed global struggle: the era of Cool War. Just as the Cold War matched the planet’s reigning superpowers in a contest for geopolitical supremacy, so this new age will pit the United States against a rising China in a contest for dominance, alliances, and resources. Already visible in Asia, the conflict will extend to the Middle East (U.S.-backed Israel versus Chinese-backed Iran), Africa, and beyond.
Yet this Cool War differs fundamentally from the zero-sum showdowns of the past: The world’s major power and its leading challenger are economically interdependent to an unprecedented degree. Exports to the U.S. account for nearly a quarter of Chinese trade, while the Chinese government holds 8 percent of America’s outstanding debt. This positive-sum interdependence has profound implications for nations, corporations, and international institutions. It makes what looked to be a classic contest between two great powers into something much more complex, contradictory, and badly in need of the shrewd and carefully reasoned analysis that Feldman provides.
To understand the looming competition with China, we must understand the incentives that drive Chinese policy. Feldman offers an arresting take on that country’s secretive hierarchy, proposing that the hereditary “princelings” who reap the benefits of the complicated Chinese political system are actually in partnership with the meritocrats who keep the system full of fresh talent and the reformers who are trying to root out corruption and foster government accountability. He provides a clear-eyed analysis of the years ahead, showing how China’s rise presents opportunities as well as risks. Robust competition could make the U.S. leaner, smarter, and more pragmatic, and could drive China to greater respect for human rights. Alternatively, disputes over trade, territory, or human rights could jeopardize the global economic equilibrium—or provoke a catastrophic “hot war” that neither country wants.
The U.S. and China may be divided by political culture and belief, but they are also bound together by mutual self-interest. Cool War makes the case for competitive cooperation as the only way forward that can preserve the peace and make winners out of both sides.

This essay discusses the contribution of the Muslim ethical literature of the middle ages to Islamic political thought. The ethical literature offers a perspective on the medieval Islamic constitution that differs markedly from the picture that derives from the juristic literature on the caliphate. Where the juristic literature largely portrays political authority as the servant of religion, the ethical literature presents religion and political authority as “brothers” arrayed in a relationship of mutual dependence. This view is decisively influenced by pre-Islamic Iranian thinking on the relationship between religion and politics, as contained in the “Letter of Tansar.”

Noah R. Feldman, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Princeton Univ. Press 2012).

Categories:

Disciplinary Perspectives & Law

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Constitutional Law

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Religion

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Religion & Law

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Islamic Law

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Type: Book

Abstract

Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia--the law of the traditional Islamic state--in the modern Muslim world.

My daughter was looking at President Obama's picture in the paper the morning after the midterm elections. ''Daddy,'' she asked, ''why does he look so frustrated?'' Explaining divided government to a 3-year-old turns out to be harder than you'd think. But she did seem to get the point that, while Obama was still the president, his job was about to become much more difficult. Historically, presidents thwarted by the loss of a Congressional majority have turned their attention to foreign policy -- no doubt the reason that Obama left for Asia within a few days of the election. The explanation for the shift in focus is constitutional as much as tactical. The founding fathers, convinced that diplomacy could not be conducted by committee, gave the executive substantial discretion in conducting foreign affairs. Although Congress can ask questions and conduct oversight hearings, a president who wants to have an impact internationally can act more or less on his own.

Noah R. Feldman, Enemy-Criminals: The Law and the War on Terror, inThe Enemy Combatant Papers: American Justice, the Courts, and the War on Terror xvii (Karen J. Greenberg & Joshua L. Dratel eds., 2008).

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Criminal Law & Procedure

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Government & Politics

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Constitutional Law

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Terrorism

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Military, War, & Peace

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National Security Law

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Type: Book

Abstract

This book provides comprehensive coverage of Supreme Court cases defining the status and rights of detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay US Navy Base.

Noah R. Feldman, Why Shariah?, N.Y. Times Mag., Mar. 16, 2008, at 46.

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Disciplinary Perspectives & Law

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Family Law

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Religion & Law

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Islamic Law

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Jewish Law

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Domestic Relations

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Type: Article

Abstract

Last month, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, gave a nuanced, scholarly lecture in London about whether the British legal system should allow non-Christian courts to decide certain matters of family law. Britain has no constitutional separation of church and state. The archbishop noted that ''the law of the Church of England is the law of the land'' there; indeed, ecclesiastical courts that once handled marriage and divorce are still integrated into the British legal system, deciding matters of church property and doctrine. His tentative suggestion was that, subject to the agreement of all parties and the strict requirement of protecting equal rights for women, it might be a good idea to consider allowing Islamic and Orthodox Jewish courts to handle marriage and divorce. Then all hell broke loose. From politicians across the spectrum to senior church figures and the ubiquitous British tabloids came calls for the leader of the world's second largest Christian denomination to issue a retraction or even resign. Williams has spent the last couple of years trying to hold together the global Anglican Communion in the face of continuing controversies about ordaining gay priests and recognizing same-sex marriages. Yet little in that contentious battle subjected him to the kind of outcry that his reference to religious courts unleashed. Needless to say, the outrage was not occasioned by Williams's mention of Orthodox Jewish law. For the purposes of public discussion, it was the word ''Shariah'' that was radioactive.

The article discusses the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the issue of the Iraq war, and why the war is not discussed on the campaign trail. The candidates only differ slightly on the war, but most of the candidates are avoiding the issue. The reasons for this are that the war is not a feel-good issue, it is difficult to judge how the surge of troops is progressing, the U.S. position on what type of Iraq we want is undecided, and the issue of an all-out civil war there is problematic.

Noah R. Feldman, What Is It About Mormonism?, N.Y. Times Mag., Jan. 6, 2008, at 34.

Categories:

Government & Politics

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Disciplinary Perspectives & Law

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Discrimination & Civil Rights

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Discrimination

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Religious Rights

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Religion & Law

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Elections & Voting

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Executive Office

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Type: Article

Abstract

The article considers Mormonism and its effect on the 2008 U.S. presidential race as one of the U.S. Republican Party's principal candidates, Mitt Romney, is a Mormon. Even though the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) does not endorse polygamy or racial intolerance, Mormonism's past is stained by stories of polygamy and doctrine concerning how races be considered.

The author questions why Americans cannot refrain from preaching about democracy to the world. He explains how the creed of exporting democracy differs from the creed of expanding empire. He suggests that Americans need to work towards aiding political parties, journalists, and others in countries where dictators try to suppress them. He maintains that the national faith that Americans share in the value of democracy is not wrong, despite the world's skepticism.

This article discusses the controversy over the existence religion in public education. The article evaluates the nonsectarian institutions of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, New York, and the Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood, Florida, which place emphasis on the use of the Arabic and Hebrew languages. Also discussed is the outrage over foot baths being installed into the bathrooms at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, Michigan, to help Muslim students perform the ablutions required for daily prayer.

The article presents the author's account of being excluded from recognition in the alumni activities of the Maimonides School, the Orthodox Jewish day school he attended in Massachusetts, because he married a woman who is not Jewish. He discusses the history and traditions of Orthodox Judaism and its relations with the modern world.

The article reports on the status and possibilities for peace in the Middle East. Information is presented on the possible outcomes in Israel, Palestine and Iraq. One possibility for settling the unrest is that the patience pays off and violence dissipates in those areas. The potential of increased radicalism is discussed.

The article reports on the status of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and whether or not they will leave the country. The responsibilities of public office are covered and provided as an explanation for why troops cannot leave, despite public opinion polls. The Bush administration is not ready to leave yet, but not clearly stating any plan either. Struggles among the Iraqi religious communities and the Democratic party are also covered.

The article reports on the United States government allegedly promoting a Shiite government in Iraq while backing Sunni authority elsewhere. Critics suggest that the U.S. government ally itself with one sect of Islam in order to help end the conflict in Iraq. Some consider radical Shiite sects in Iran and Hezbollah to be a threat. Others contend that the fundamental anti-intellectualism of Sunni Islam is anti-American. The history of the Sunni-Shiite civil war is included.

This article discusses politics in the U.S. and President George W. Bush's policies on the Iraq War. In January 2007, Congress drafted a nonbinding Congressional resolution condemning the president's plan to secure Baghdad by sending over 20,000 additional troops to Iraq. Senator Ted Kennedy has introduced legislation that would block the president from adding more troops without specific Congressional authorization.

Noah R. Feldman, Not the Case, N.Y. Times Mag., Jan. 7, 2007, at 13.

Categories:

International, Foreign & Comparative Law

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Criminal Law & Procedure

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Disciplinary Perspectives & Law

Sub-Categories:

Sentencing & Punishment

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Islamic Law

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Foreign Relations

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Human Rights Law

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Type: Article

Abstract

The author discusses the trial and execution of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The author asserts that the Iraqi tribunal council, that prosecuted the case, was not properly handled and was confused on the nature of its own authority. One of the biggest problems the author has with the council is the rush to execution that Hussein received. Though the author agrees that Hussein should have been executed, he feels that Hussein should have been tried for all his crimes and not just one.

This volume presents ten leading scholars' writings on contemporary Islamic law and Muslim thought. The essays examine a range of issues, from modern Muslim discourses on justice, natural law, and the common good, to democracy, the social contract, and "the authority of the preeminent jurist." Changes in how Shari'a has been understood over the centuries are explored, as well as how it has been applied in both Sunni and Shi'i Islam.

The article discusses the development of the nuclear bomb by Iran. While Israel has been accused of having working nuclear weapons for years, it was only after Iran's nuclear program matured that global politics experts claimed the world has entered a second nuclear era in which nuclear war is a possibility.

The article offers a look at how United States citizens express a collective verdict on the state of the nation when they vote. In the modern era, the author argues, midterm elections have come to serve as expressions of public opinion. He suggests that despite the outcome of votes during the 2006 November elections, U.S. President George W. Bush will not alter his administration's way of governing.

Noah R. Feldman, Why Not Talk?, N.Y. Times Mag., Oct. 1, 2006, at 15.

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International, Foreign & Comparative Law

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Government & Politics

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Military, War, & Peace

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National Security Law

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Politics & Political Theory

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Foreign Relations

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Type: Article

Abstract

The article discusses the benefits of diplomacy to avoid war. While Israel and Palestine are on the verge of negotiating a settlement and Iran prepares to discuss its nuclear weapons program with a coalition of Asian and European countries, the United States refuses to take part in any negotiations, due to outdated foreign policies.

The author believes that the U.S. policy of introducing democracy to the Middle East opened the door to the legitimate election of entitles, such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The balanced powers of the Cold War era are gone, to be replaced by democratically legitimized militias that go to war with powerful states. Democracy in the region is no longer an end in itself.

Noah R. Feldman, Out of One, Many, N.Y. Times Book Rev., July 30, 2006, at 8 (reviewing Fouad Ajami, The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq (2006), and Peter W. Galbraith, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End (2006)).

Categories:

Government & Politics

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International, Foreign & Comparative Law

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Disciplinary Perspectives & Law

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Islamic Law

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Law & Political Theory

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Military, War, & Peace

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Foreign Relations

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Type: Article

Abstract

This article reviews the books "The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq," by Fouad Ajami, and "The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End," by Peter W. Galbraith.

Noah R. Feldman, The Only Exit Strategy Left, N.Y. Times Mag., June 25, 2006, at 13.

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International, Foreign & Comparative Law

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Government & Politics

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Politics & Political Theory

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Military, War, & Peace

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Executive Office

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Foreign Relations

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Type: Article

Abstract

The article argues that the only way for the United States to exit Iraq with any hope of leaving the country and region intact is to push a political solution to the insurgency. U.S. politicians have shifted their rhetoric from the original argument that war would provide a space for democracy to democracy being the only thing that will put an end to war.

Noah R. Feldman, The God Factor, Wash. Post Book World, May 14, 2006, at T04 (reviewing Madeline Albright, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (2006)).

Categories:

Disciplinary Perspectives & Law

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International, Foreign & Comparative Law

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Criminal Law & Procedure

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Terrorism

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Religion & Law

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Foreign Relations

Type: Article

Noah R. Feldman, Disunities, N.Y. Times Mag., Apr. 9, 2006, at 11.

Categories:

Government & Politics

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International, Foreign & Comparative Law

Sub-Categories:

Politics & Political Theory

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Military, War, & Peace

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Foreign Relations

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Developing & Emerging Nations

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Type: Article

Abstract

The article discusses politics in Iraq, and the need to create a national unity government. The author argues that if there were no insurgency, the political arena in Iraq might have been dominated by the same political parties based on religious beliefs and ethnic identification, only they would have allied in different ways. Still, their interests would have generated a government that included all the major constituencies, except extremists unwilling to renounce violence. It is also argued that the American political environment would also be affected.

The article presents a forum on which various experts weigh in on the situation in Iraq in 2006. Included are thoughts from New York University law professor Noah Feldman, author Vali Nasr, professor of political science at Stanford University James Fearon, and professor of history at the University of Michigan Juan Cole.

The article argues that the presidency of George W. Bush has been marked by an expansion of the executive powers, far beyond what the founding fathers intended. This is the culmination of a few hundred years' worth of political developments that eroded the balance of powers. The author suggests that while the Supreme Court has been charged with the responsibility of controlling the presidency, it is Congress that must reestablish itself as a real check on presidential power.

Today the idea of imposed constitutionalism takes place against a backdrop of widespread commitment to democratic self-determination. This can create a tension between equality and autonomy, where the franchised majority supports the marginalizationof some, but also resists interference by outsiders in the matter. However, interfering in constitutional processes abroad in order to ensure that they empower as many people as possible can establish egalitarianism as nothing more than a formalistic constraint demanded by outsiders. For a constitution to succeed it must be established by local self-interest, not external pressure that is by definition temporary.

Noah R. Feldman & Roman Martinez, The International Migration of Constitutional Norms in the New World Order, 75 Fordham L. Rev. 883 (2006).

The Canaanite King Adoni-Bezek has just a single line of dialogue in the Bible, but it is one not easily forgotten. Defeated by the combined forces of the tribes of Judah and Simeon, he is subjected to the ordeal of having his index fingers and great toes cut off. Adoni-bezek's philosophical response is that in his day he himself lopped off the fingers and toes of seventy kings: “As I have done, so God hath requited me.” With these last words, the captive king is brought to Jerusalem, where he dies.
Today prisoners of war are protected by the Geneva Conventions – but the principle of reciprocity articulated in the king's reflection on the customs of victors still pervades the laws of war. The assumption that all sides might torture or kill prisoners has given way, at least in theory, to the principle that all sides are reciprocally obligated to treat prisoners of war and civilians under occupation humanely. It is fair to say that this norm of international law grew as much from the mutual interests of belligerents in having their own prisoners of war treated humanely as from any deeply held commitment to the dignity of the person. Otherwise it would be almost impossible to explain the anomaly that, according to the rules of war, the enemy may be killed even while he is fleeing, but if captured must be sheltered, fed, and returned to his home when the war is over.

Noah R. Feldman, War and Reason in Maimonides and Averroes, inThe Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions (Richard Sorabji & David Rodin eds., 2006).

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Disciplinary Perspectives & Law

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Government & Politics

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Religion & Law

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Military, War, & Peace

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Type: Book

Abstract

The Ethics of War traces how different cultures involved in present conflicts have addressed problems over the centuries.

Noah R. Feldman, A Church - State Solution, N.Y. Times Mag., July 3, 2005, at 28.

Categories:

Constitutional Law

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Government & Politics

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Discrimination & Civil Rights

Sub-Categories:

First Amendment

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Religion

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Constitutional History

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Religious Rights

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Supreme Court of the United States

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Type: Article

Abstract

Focuses on the issue of the separation of church and the state or religion and government. Description of the history of the relationship from the Roman Empire to the American Revolution; Discussion of the wording of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution; Comparison of values of evangelicals with legal secularists; How the U.S. States Supreme Court has changed the relationship of church and state; Discussion of a possible solution of compromise between both opposing views; How state financial aid to religious institutions creates conflict.

Noah R. Feldman, Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem - And What We Should Do About It (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2005).

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Disciplinary Perspectives & Law

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Constitutional Law

Sub-Categories:

Religion

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Religion & Law

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Type: Book

Noah Feldman, Division, Design, and the Divine: Church and State in Today's America, 30 Okla. City U. L. Rev. 845 (2005).

A lucid and compelling case for a new American stance toward the Islamic world. What comes after jihad? Outside the headlines, believing Muslims are increasingly calling for democratic politics in their undemocratic countries.

Noah R. Feldman, What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building (Princeton Univ. Press 2004).

Categories:

Government & Politics

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International, Foreign & Comparative Law

Sub-Categories:

Military, War, & Peace

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Military & Veterans Law

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Foreign Relations

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Type: Book

Abstract

What do we owe Iraq?
America is up to its neck in nation building--but the public debate, focused on getting the troops home, devotes little attention to why we are building a new Iraqi nation, what success would look like, or what principles should guide us. What We Owe Iraq sets out to shift the terms of the debate, acknowledging that we are nation building to protect ourselves while demanding that we put the interests of the people being governed--whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, or elsewhere--ahead of our own when we exercise power over them.
Noah Feldman argues that to prevent nation building from turning into a paternalistic, colonialist charade, we urgently need a new, humbler approach. Nation builders should focus on providing security, without arrogantly claiming any special expertise in how successful nation-states should be made. Drawing on his personal experiences in Iraq as a constitutional adviser, Feldman offers enduring insights into the power dynamics between the American occupiers and the Iraqis, and tackles issues such as Iraqi elections, the prospect of successful democratization, and the way home.
Elections do not end the occupier's responsibility. Unless asked to leave, we must resist the temptation of a military pullout before a legitimately elected government can maintain order and govern effectively. But elections that create a legitimate democracy are also the only way a nation builder can put itself out of business and--eventually--send its troops home.
Feldman's new afterword brings the Iraq story up-to-date since the book's original publication in 2004, and asks whether the United States has acted ethically in pushing the political process in Iraq while failing to control the security situation; it also revisits the question of when, and how, to withdraw.